Courtship for the Clueless

"Roger Chamberlain? I have instructions from the Executive Committee about you. The judges would like to talk to you. If you wouldn't mind waiting over here, sir?"

A short time later, a member of the Executive Committee appeared and escorted Roger to the stage set up at one end of the hall where the cars were on display. He and nine other owners were shepherded onto it, and in front of cameras from the local TV stations and a couple of cable channels focused on automobiles and American life, the ten were presented with plaques congratulating them on their cars having reached the final round of the USVAA's "Best Restored Vehicle of the Year."

Tiffany was waiting when Roger came down off the stage.

"Kathy came and got me. Congratulations! To make it to the Top Ten! And with your first restoration, at that! What happens next?"

"What happens next," said a silver-haired gentleman, "will be interviews with the media tomorrow at 12:30. Check in at the Committee office half an hour before, if you please. Bring any photos or video you may have of the restoration process, please; they might be useful. I'll see you then." He walked off towards one of the other finalists, presumably to convey the same information.

"Well, it seems my day is being planned for me," Roger chuckled, looking at the plaque he was carrying. "But whatever shall we do between now and then?"

Tiffany twined herself around him. "I think we can come up with something. Let's head back to the room and then have dinner."

The most direct route back to the Westgate's hotel rooms from the convention center passed through the casino. Roger had told Tiffany more than once that he had no interest in casino gambling, but she paused at a bank of slot machines.

"You're so lucky today, you just have to try and win here," she declared. "I'll go get some change." She veered over to a cashier's cage and returned with a cup full of quarters, handing it to him.

"You can't say you've really been to Vegas unless you've tried a slot machine or two. Go on. Pick a machine and give it a spin, just for the heck of it."

"All right, if it will make you happy, my sweet." He sat down at an open machine and fed in some quarters. Although many of the modern machines were operated by big buttons to start the wheels spinning, with individual buttons under each wheel to stop them, this bank of machines retained the old style pull lever that had given the machines the nickname of one-armed bandits. He grabbed the arm and yanked.

The wheels spun, and after a few seconds he punched the three buttons under the wheels that stopped them spinning. He was not surprised to see that the three windows showed a random combination that paid nothing. He pulled the arm again and stopped the wheels again. There was a small "Ding!" and the indicator ticked upwards, telling him that he'd just won twenty dollars for lining up three stars. He pulled it again, and got nothing for his spin. He pulled again, and this time the wheels came up Bar -- Wildcard - Wildcard. Lights flashed, a horn whooped, and bells rang.

"I think I just hit the jackpot!" Roger exclaimed.

"Not the jackpot, darling, but a jackpot," corrected Tiffany, who had been reading the combinations on the front of the machine. "This combination pays $600."

Roger tapped the payout button. Instead of the shower of coins he expected from watching old movies, a strip of paper curled out of the payout slot.

"They say the essence of gambling is knowing when to quit. I'd rather leave with a modest win than get greedy and lose it all. Let's get this cashed out, shall we?"

"And then what?"

He put an arm around her. "What we decided before. Back to the room, and then dinner ... only dinner may be a little later." He gave her breast a gentle squeeze and she smiled.

The next day, Tiffany was just a little peeved with her lover. Roger had slept in, not having a book signing to attend that morning, and had agreed to meet her at one o'clock and take her out to lunch. Here it was one-thirty, and no sign of him. At a quarter of two, he arrived at the Alabama Auto Honey booth looking excited.

"I'm sorry to be late, sweetheart, but the interview ran overtime. As the Committee told us to, I brought along a thumb drive with all the photos of The Little Old Lady, from the day I found her in that old garage under a tarp to the afternoon we unveiled her to our friends. The interviews are part of a television special about the show; one of the channels covers it every year.

"When the interviewers got a look at the pix, one of them recognized Speed and started asking how I'd come to know him, and one thing led to another, and the director recognized me and asked if I was doing a book on car restoration, so we talked about that for a bit. I mentioned the fact Speed, the Impossible Mission Force, and I had restored your Ford F-3 and it was here at the show. They said they'd be by to take some footage of it later this afternoon, and talk to you about it. I figure you can get some good publicity out of it."

"In that case, you're forgiven. Come buy me some surf 'n turf, and you can tell me all about it."

Sure enough, after they returned from lunch there was a camera crew filming the pickup and talking to the owners of the company. After Tiffany slipped out of the wrap dress she'd worn to lunch over her sexy-country-gal outfit, more film was shot of her polishing her red, black and silver show truck.

"You know," said the assistant director who was picking up the shots, "the suits are talking about doing a series of one-shot eps, half hour format, about ordinary people who restore a car that they are in love with, not companies who find a car, fix it up, and flip it. I'm going to send a memo suggesting that you and Miss Tiffany over there would make two good episodes."

Roger handed over a business card. "Here's how you can reach me, but if you are in a hurry to move ahead, talk to my assistant, Kathy Reagan. She's in the Westgate until the end of the show. Give her the paperwork and talk to her, and then she'll advise me what comes next." They shook on it.

Sunday afternoon was the last day of the show, the day the prizes were awarded. The five who were in competition for the grand prize of Best Vintage Car of the Year had been informed they were in contention, and were standing on the stage at the far end of the hall. Fifth place went to an immaculately restored 1971 AMC Javelin that had participated in the Trans Am Championships the first year American Motors had won that competition. Fourth went to a glossy black 1939 LaSalle convertible, one of Harley Earl's more interesting designs. Down to three competitors, the tension was thick enough to cut with a knife. Tiffany crossed her fingers; it was down to a 1955 Triumph TR3 roadster in British Racing Green, a sky-blue-over-royal-blue 1946 Packard Clipper, and Roger's crimson Little Old Lady, the only restomod to make it to the final five. And in the event that was how they finished, the TR3 winning first place, the Clipper taking second, and the Dodge Dart Super Sport coming in third.

"Third place. Not bad for a first automobile restoration," Roger said with satisfaction, handing Tiffany the triple bronze pillared trophy with a bronze sports car on top. "This belongs as much to you as to me, sweetheart."

"Not hardly, darling. You did all the hard stuff before we met. I was just in at the end. But she did turn out beautifully, and I'm not the only one who thinks so, obviously. There's just one more thing to do before we can head back home -- "

Roger gave her a lewd look and wiggled his eyebrows.

" -- Not that, you horndog, you! The USVAA Parade tomorrow. It starts at 10 A.M., goes up the Las Vegas Strip, and then loops back here. It's a tradition. We have to do it. It won't take long, and when we get back here to the Convention Center, the organizers will direct us to the truck that will take our cars home. Our driver already texted me with his plate, so I know which one to look for. He added that he's going to hang a white flag with a blue cross on it off the back of the truck so I can find it easier. He says most of the drivers do things like that for this show. Okay?"

"Whatever you say, Tiff. I expect there will be film crews out there too. The cable channels will want to show the parade as the windup of the show, I suppose. The local news teams will be shooting as well. It might even get aired if it's a slow news day."

So at 8:00 on Monday morning, at the direction of the convention organizers and with some help from the LVPD, the cars and trucks that were the pride of their home states began staging onto the parking lot. Shortly before 10 A.M., the line of cars began to move onto Convention Center Boulevard, and then turned right onto the Las Vegas Strip, heading for the center of town. There was a little bit of jockeying as the drivers of cars as varied at Alabama's century old 1912 Stutz Bearcat and a 1990 Mercedes SL300 convertible from Georgia adjusted to the station-keeping required of parade driving, but before long they were maintaining their intervals with ease, windows down, waving at the onlookers. Some of the passengers waved flags, and some cranked up radios or boom boxes, playing music appropriate to their vehicles as they motored along.

Roger chose to leave the radio off, not wanting the distraction as he kept his place in the line, waving at the people, occasionally clutching and tapping the brakes, but mostly just pressing lightly on the gas with no need to shift out of first. He pointed things out as they rolled up the Strip.

"You see that wedding chapel there? That's the Chapel of the Flowers. It's one of the oldest wedding chapels in Vegas, from before this place was Sin City. Dennis Rodman and Carmen Electra were married there, though it didn't take." Tiffany looked at the chapel as they went past, thinking how odd it was to see a church that had its roofline and windows outlined in neon.

A little while later, they came to a sign pointing the way to the A Special Memory Wedding Chapel. Roger commented, "That's the chapel that has the drive-up wedding window; I've seen it on CSI and in the movies a couple of times. It's the place to go for impulse weddings in this burg." Tiffany stopped waving and looked at him curiously.

A sign on another street corner pointed to the Elvis Chapel on South First Street. "I've heard about that place. It's really popular with Elvis Presley fans. Lots of weddings there with the brides dressed like Priscilla Presley right down to the white lipstick, and the grooms dressed like various incarnations of Elvis. And they say that all the ministers are Elvis impersonators. You can even choose between having Young Elvis and Old Elvis perform the ceremony."

Eventually the parade got to the Wee Kirk o' the Heather. "The Wee Kirk is the oldest continuously operating wedding chapel in Vegas. It's been renovated a couple of times, but it's been open since before World War II. I understand that they went back and forth a couple of times with the operators of Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California as to who had the right to use the name in advertising. I think a judge finally told the both of them to sit down and shut up because no one was going to mistake a wedding chapel on the main drag in Vegas for a church in the middle of a cemetery in Los Angeles."

Tiffany had finally had enough of Roger's wedding chapel tour. "Roger, just what are you thinking? That we're going to break out of the parade and pull up to one of these chapels where you can get married without even getting out of the car? Don't you dare!"

"All right, I won't." He took her left hand, rested it on his thigh and reached into the pocket of his sport coat. He fished out a 2-carat emerald cut diamond ring. Picking up her hand, he slid it onto her ring finger.

Suddenly Tiffany's self was floating above and behind her body. She looked at the ring, caught by surprise. Roger said conversationally, "Since you don't want to do this impulsively, you can have your choice of any church in Alabama." She remained silent, and he went on, "Of course, if you don't like the idea, I can just take it off ..."

Spinning back into her body, she slid across the seat and pulled herself tight to him, wrapping her left arm around him. She nibbled his earlobe, and whispered in his ear, "Don't ... you ... dare." Resting her head on his shoulder, she watched as he followed the parade into a cross street that would turn them around and take them back to the Convention Center to load their cars for the trip back home.

Fin